1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a bankable apparatus or item for sending small amounts of money by mail, particularly to religious and/or non-profit organizations that are soliciting donations from the general public.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The present situation in the United States is that most persons receive in their mails a number of solicitations a month for donations from various religious and/or non-profit organizations. These lead to a number of problems which are:
(1) For one receiving 10 to 20 solicitations per month, a donation of $1.00, $2.00, $5.00, $10.00, or $20.00 per donation would cost a minimum of $10.00 to a maximum of $400.00 dollars per month. To one with a generous heart, but a very limited means such a person goes through a lot of mental anguish each month as he/she tries to determine who gets his/her donation and how much.
(2) After the decision is made as to how many charities and how much each gets his/her donation for the month he/she then goes through much hassle. He/she must (a) write the name of the charity/church on a personal check, (b) sign the check, (c) place the check inside an envelope, (d) lick the envelope, (e) close the envelope, (f) buy a postage stamp, (g) lick the stamp, and (h) stick the stamp on the envelope.
The above are not small matters when one is giving to as many as 10 to 20 charities/churches each month. The postage stamps alone would cost from $2.90 to $5.80 each month. There is also the cost of using 10 to 20 personal checks and the headache of reconciling the checking accounts, what with so many checks being issued each month. They are irritating and they discourage giving. These problems are real not only to the proponent of the instant invention but also to tens of millions of kind-hearted charity donors in the U.S. and in all of the advanced countries in the world.
The instant invention of a directly mailable postcard-type check, personal or otherwise, significantly minimizes these problems. Also, a reduction in postage for checks mailed in envelopes from $0.32 to $0.20 for postcards means a savings to the donor of $0.10 per mailed donation.